Under-reporting of greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities

Kevin Robert Gurney (), Jianming Liang, Geoffrey Roest, Yang Song, Kimberly Mueller and Thomas Lauvaux
Additional contact information
Kevin Robert Gurney: Northern Arizona University
Jianming Liang: ESRI
Geoffrey Roest: Northern Arizona University
Yang Song: Northern Arizona University
Kimberly Mueller: National Institute for Standards and Technology
Thomas Lauvaux: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Cities dominate greenhouse gas emissions. Many have generated self-reported emission inventories, but their value to emissions mitigation depends on their accuracy, which remains untested. Here, we compare self-reported inventories from 48 US cities to independent estimates from the Vulcan carbon dioxide emissions data product, which is consistent with atmospheric measurements. We found that cities under-report their own greenhouse gas emissions, on average, by 18.3% (range: −145.5% to +63.5%) – a difference which if extrapolated to all U.S. cities, exceeds California’s total emissions by 23.5%. Differences arise because city inventories omit particular fuels and source types and estimate transportation emissions differently. These results raise concerns about self-reported inventories in planning or assessing emissions, and warrant consideration of the new urban greenhouse gas information system recently developed by the scientific community.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20871-0

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